


Just a Child

by BookLover86



Category: Danny Phantom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-25
Updated: 2016-11-25
Packaged: 2018-09-02 02:13:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,817
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8647699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BookLover86/pseuds/BookLover86
Summary: He is a fifteen-year-old convict, a murderer against his will. He now lives behind bars, empty eyes staring at a stone wall for hours upon hours. He doesn’t talk, he barely moves. His parents don’t visit; they can’t bear to see their son behind bars. His sister cries as she watches him; she can’t believe how it came to this. His best friends try talking to him; they’re dead set on proving his innocence. His classmates speak his name in fear; the quiet boy now turned felon. Despite the cruel rumors and news stories that have spread around the globe about this evil boy, he is still just a child.





	

***

     “Are you sure you want to visit him?” the guard asked, frowning down at the two teenagers. The girl narrowed her violet eyes and bared her teeth, while the guy straightened his glasses, one hand tightened around the girl’s wrist, keeping her from jumping the man.

     “Yes,” the guy answered, his voice firm. The guard shrugged, but patted them down nonetheless, searching for anything that could cause them or anyone else harm. He found nothing. He swiped the key card into a slot and opened the creaky door, signaling for the two to go through. “If he causes you any trouble, push the button on the wall.”

     “We won’t have to do that,” the girl snapped, brushing past him.

     “He’s a murderer!” the guard called after them.

     “That’s it,” she hissed, before whipping around and throwing a swift punch to his jaw. The guard reeled back, pain blooming on his chin.

     “He didn’t kill anyone!” the girl screeched. “He’s innocent!” With that, she ran down the hallway to the cell, with the guy close on her heels.

     The guard closed his gaping mouth and stationed himself outside the door. He wouldn’t report the girl. She was just hurting and needed time to heal and realize that whatever was left of her friend is now gone.

***

     The girl and guy bolted down the hallway, soon bursting into an open area bordered by a wall of clear glass and rusty bars.  Behind it, on a hard cot, sat a young man. His charcoal hair was streaked with a filthy gray and white, hanging down his neck and resting on his shoulders. His cerulean eyes were dull and haunted, sunken into his cheeks with deep bags underneath them. Translucent skin was stretched across prominent cheekbones, showcasing hollowed cheeks and cracked lips. His fingers and arms were heavily scarred and calloused, twisted as they sat in his lap. The young man was staring at a wall with sporadic tally marks all over it. Ninety-seven tally marks, one for each day he’s been in here. 

     “Danny,” the girl breathed, resting a hand on the glass.  “Danny, it’s me. It’s Sam.” The boy didn’t respond. Sam’s eyes welled with tears as she stepped back. 

     The darker skinned guy stepped up, giving a shaky smile to the prisoner.  “How you doing, Danny? It’s Tucker, remember?” Still, he was silent. Sam and Tucker didn’t speak for a couple of moments, trading worried glances. 

     “We know you’re innocent, and we’re going to prove it,” Sam declared, voice wavering. Danny said nothing. 

     “Say something, Danny! Just something so that we know you’re still in there,” Tucker pleaded, hands pressed against the glass separating them. Danny slowly turned his gaze from the wall to Tucker, eyes glazed and vacant.

     “How are my parents?” he asked, voice raspy and dry, as if he hadn’t talked for a good long while. Seeing the state he was in, it was a good possibility that he hadn’t. 

     “They’re getting by,” Sam eventually replied, her tone tight. Danny nodded slightly. “Jazz?” 

     “I haven’t seen her in school since…this,” Tucker waved to the glass and bars, “all happened.” 

     “She comes here sometimes,” Danny murmured. “She doesn’t talk. She only cries.” 

     “How are _you_ , Danny?” Sam questioned, taking a step closer to the border between them. 

     Danny lifted his shoulders in a small shrug, a wince flitting across his pale features. “I’ve been better.” A sarcastic chuckle escaped his lips. 

     “We’re going to get you out of here, Danny. I promise you that,” Tucker swore. 

     Danny let loose another humorless laugh. “With the kind of evidence they have on me? Not a chance.” 

     “But you’re innocent,” Sam protested. 

     The prisoner turned his eyesight back to the wall. He let the silence ring in the room for a good long while before whispering his response.  “I know, but there’s nothing I can do to prove that. You know how they found me.” 

***

      _Danny heard a scream from the alleyway a little ways away from him. He felt a chill climb his spine as he began to run towards the sound. He saw a tall man, waving around a pistol and screaming at a young woman who looked scared to death. He had her backed up against a wall, and his entire body was shaking as he pointed the gun at her tear-streaked face._

_Danny felt himself move forward, reaching out towards the woman, but getting there too late. He could only watch as he pulled the trigger. The woman fell the the ground, covered in a thick red liquid that coated the wall behind her._ _Danny landed on his knees by her side, hands clawing at her head to try and find a pulse. Nothing. After that, he was chasing the guy as he began to run away. He’d dropped the gun, which Danny picked up and threw at his head. It hit the murderer’s back, but he kept running. The man took many turns, turns Danny didn’t know, and Danny soon lost him._

_Cursing, Danny ran back to dial the police and to find the man. Thinking back, he could’ve gone ghost and saved that woman, but it never occurred to him in the heat of the moment. By the time he ran back to the body, it was surrounded by police officers. Officers who raised their guns at him as soon as he rounded the corner. He put his hands, which were covered in the woman’s blood, into the air. He realized how bad it looked, but he had no words._

_Danny let the police manhandle him into the back of a squad car and slap handcuffs on his wrists. He was taken downtown and questioned, but none of the detectives believed him when he told them the truth. They found his prints on the gun, and no one else’s. The man had been wearing gloves. Turns out, the woman had been a big time reporter who was in town to denounce the Fenton’s as lunatics to the entire nation. Two and two were put together, and Danny was put behind bars. Declared guilty in front of the entire town._

_His parents, Jazz, and his friends believed him when he said he didn’t do it, but no one else did. There weren’t any witnesses to testify Danny’s innocence, so he was thrown into jail. They gave him twenty-five years minimum. He could get out in thirty with good behavior. From that point on, his life had flipped on its head._

_He was gone forever._

***

     His locker was clean. Cleaner than he ever kept it, wiped from top to bottom. Nothing left in it. All of his belongings had to be handed over to the police. The school left it alone, not assigning anyone to that locker just yet. Not one student or teacher passed his locker without sparing a glance. 

     His two best friends had started putting sticky notes on it, writing things like,  _ Innocent _ , and  _ Not A Murderer _ . Others had taken up their cry, protesting against Danny’s imprisonment, yelling that more evidence be dug up.  After all, who could believe that sweet, quiet, wimpy Danny Fenton was possible of killing another human? 

     The rest that didn’t speak out didn’t know what to think. They thought they knew him, but then he was put behind bars for murder. No one talked about him though. They avoided the topic like the plague. 

     Mr. Lancer tried to hide his pale face and watery eyes whenever his hands reached towards the detention pad and his eyes wandered to Danny’s empty seat. It had been drilled into his mind that if Daniel wasn’t there, he was tardy and was getting another detention, as usual. It would take him a couple of seconds to remember that Daniel was in jail. 

     Dash was seriously considering dropping out of school, remembering how many times he had bullied Danny. Had he been the one to push him towards the point of pulling the trigger and ending a woman’s life? 

     Paulina didn’t seem affected on the outside, but she stopped wearing makeup. She didn’t flirt with anyone. 

     Valerie snapped at everyone and cried spontaneously. She quit ghost hunting. 

     Not one student nor teacher had gone unaffected by what had happened, although some were better at hiding it than others. The entire school was somber and quiet.

***

     When Vlad heard about what happened to Daniel after he had gotten back from his six-month trip to Europe, he was furious. He had stormed into the police station and demanded why Daniel was behind bars. When it was explained, he asked if this was all a joke. Daniel would never lift a single finger to hurt someone, much less kill a person. He refused to believe the police when they showed him all the evidence. Vlad demanded that Danny be set free, but the police refused. Instead, Vlad visited Daniel in his cell. It had been apparently about five months since he was convicted of this crime. 

     “You didn’t kill her, did you?’ Vlad asked as soon as the guard let him in to see the little badger. Danny looked awful; stick thin and pale, sickly and tired. He looked like the living embodiment of a zombie. It was surprising that Vlad was looking at a breathing human being and not a cadaver. 

     “No,” Daniel rasped, shaking his head slightly. 

     “Then why are you behind these bars?” 

     “I had thrown the gun at the guy who killed her to try and slow him down, but he still got away. I had tried to find her pulse before. The woman was here to denounce my parents, so it was put together. I apparently had motive, my prints on the gun, and her blood on my hands.” 

     “This is ridiculous!” Vlad screamed, fists clenched. Danny didn’t blink. “Tell that to the judge who assigned me a minimum of twenty-five years.” 

     Vlad gaped at the young man. “Twenty-five? You’re a teenager!” 

     “I’m apparently a murderer. You might want to calm down, Vlad, unless you want to introduce the cameras to your second personality.” 

     Vlad looked at his hands and saw faint pink glows. He growled and calmed himself down enough that the glow faded. 

     “I will get you out of here Daniel. I swear it,” Vlad hissed. Danny let out a cynical laugh, before giving a cruel dead smile to Vlad. “That’s what Sam and Tucker said two months ago. And yet, here I am. There’s no way I’m leaving this cell, Vlad. Just accept it, like I have.”

***

     None of the ghosts believed that he could commit such a crime when they heard about it. Danny’s allies were furious and began planning to steal Danny out of jail. His enemies were shocked just as much, and didn’t take advantage of the hero being locked up. They planned with his allies, wanting to break him out. They all agreed that the halfa did not deserve to be in there, and that he did not murder that woman. 

     Despite all their planning, when the time came to execute it, seven months after Danny had first been imprisoned, he said no. He told them that if he ran, he would be wanted, and his family and friends would pay for his disappearance. He refused to put them in danger like that, and all of the ghosts respected him for that. 

     When young Danielle heard about the one who was like her older brother, she broke down crying and insisted on seeing him. She visited him, and Danny got up from his bed for the first time in weeks and pressed his hands against the glass. She pressed her hand against his through the glass, and the two of them sagged against the barrier and cried. It was the most interaction and emotion anyone had gotten out of the captured teenager in months. After she left, Danny fell into an even worse depression and didn’t even eat his food. Even the prison guards began to worry about him. 

     The poor young man was slowly going insane. 

***

     It was two weeks after Danielle’s first and only visit when Danny lost it. 

     He started screaming, mind-shattering and bloodcurdling. His scream was so disturbing, tens of guards crammed into the visiting room, trying to get him to stop. Later, they would realize that it was simply Danny using his Ghostly Wail. 

     After he finished screaming, he looked each of the guards in the eyes before using his cryokinesis to grow a large icicle in his hand, the edge sharper than a cutting knife. Within a couple of seconds, he held a large ice sword with a deadly blade. He glared at the camera he knew what in his room before “going ghost”. White rings split across his broken body, transforming him into Danny Phantom. 

     With a sneer, Danny spoke his last words: “I did not kill her.” 

     After he spoke, he shoved the blade into his abdomen. Blood and ectoplasm leaked out of the grisly wound and Danny fell onto the ground, twitching. He involuntarily switched back to his human form, which only made him bleed faster. His entire body was shaking and he was whimpering and crying. By the time guards got into his actual cell, it was too late. The young halfa lay dead on the cement floor, surrounded by a pool of crimson blood and sickly green ectoplasm. 

     On the wall behind him, were the tally marks he used to mark how many days he’d been there. Only now, they could see what it actually was. In rough letters, it spelled out six names:  _ Sam, Tucker, Jazz, Dani, Vlad, Valerie _ . Underneath that, in shaky words, was the phrase, _ I’m done with living a lie _ . 

     Every single guard who witnessed, in person, quit that very day and never returned to that prison. No one wanted to remember what happened, and how they had a hand in it. 

***

     The funeral was a large occasion. Everyone wanted to honor the young hero who was better known the public as Danny Phantom. The video of Danny committing suicide had gone viral, although most of the versions had cut the gory parts out. Mostly, news of his secret identity spread like wildfire. 

     Only a few days after his death, Sam and Tucker uncovered tapes from street security cameras, showcasing what actually happened. All charges were dropped and all slander was taken back. The family of the woman apologized to Danny’s family and sent condolence money after he had died. No one blamed him for taking his own life. They imagined if they had been in his shoes, and most concluded that they wouldn’t have held on as long as he had. 

     When the coal black casket was carried past, millions of tears were shed. No eyes were dry, and no hearts weren’t broken that day. 

     Sam and Tucker leaned on each other for support, both silently sobbing. 

     Jazz and her parents were complete messes, bawling and sniffling and yelling. 

     Danielle hadn’t stopped weeping or howling since she heard the news, her world shattered before her own eyes. 

     Vlad held his head in his hands, tears falling steadily on the ground as his shoulders heaved and his voice shook. 

     Dash and Paulina were horrified and heartbroken, depression weighing them down. 

     Mr. Lancer shed tears over the good memories he had of Daniel, and how the young man had the weight of the world on his shoulders. 

     Valerie couldn’t believe that Danny was gone, and barely spoke, crying without words. 

     Hundreds of ghosts attended his ceremony as well as people. Clockwork, the Dairy King, Frostbite, Cujo, Pandora, Princess Dorathea, Wulf, and Klemper. Even ghosts like Skulker came. Ember, Johnny 13, Shadow, Kitty, the Box Ghost, Desiree, the Ghost Writer, Youngblood, Sidney Poindexter, and Technus. The ghosts acted as Danny’s guardians, and they were the ones who lowered his casket into the ground. 

     Then it was over. 

     Danny was gone. 

     Even for years after his suicide, Danny left an impact on the town of Amity Park. 

     Dani became the new protector. Some ghosts that were enemies of Danny became allies of Dani’s, and helped to protect the town. 

     Sam became an extremely successful horror writer. 

     Tucker became a tech mogul. He married Valerie, who headed her own string of ghost fighting schools. 

     Jazz became a world-renowned scientist. 

     Vlad stayed as the town mayor, but was public about being a halfa like Danny. 

     Dash got into a great college on a football scholarship and went to play in the NFL. He married Paulina, who became a well-known fashion designer. 

     Maddie and Jack stayed in Amity Park and continued making Fenton weapons. 

     No one forgot the hero and no one forgot what he did.  Despite the stories honoring him, Daniel Fenton was fifteen-years-old when he died. He was too young. 

     At the end of it all, he was just a child.

***

**Author's Note:**

> I am posting this at 11:50 PM on Thanksgiving night while listening to Never Grow Up by Taylor Swift, after spending all day avoiding family and instead writing this...I have no idea anymore. If you liked it, stay tuned for some other one-shots that are just as equally depressing coming soon! It's a series going to be called And I Quote... and if you like Teen Wolf, then definitely check out the first one, which I'll probably post either tomorrow or the day after. Thank you so much for reading. Bye!


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